y we spare.
There let them warble in the tainted breeze, 75
Or sing like widow'd orphans to the trees:
There let them chant their incoherent dreams,
Where howls Charybdis, and where Scylla screams!
Or where Avernus, from his darksome round,
May echo to the winds the blasted sound! 80
As fair Alcyone,[69] with anguish press'd,
Broods o'er the British main with tuneful breast,
Beneath the white-brow'd cliff protected sings,
Or skims the azure plain with painted wings!
Grateful, like her, to nature, and as just, 85
In our domestic blessings let us trust;
Keep for our sons fair learning's honour'd prize,
Till the world own the worth they now despise!

FOOTNOTES:

[63] See Memoir, p. xxxviii.

[64] Now Countess-dowager of Peterborough.

[65] Vauxhall.

[66] Vide the Spectator's Letters from Camilla, vol. vi.

[67] Milton's Comus lately revived.

[68] Senesino has built a palace near Sienna on an estate which carries
the title of a Marquisate, but purchased with English gold.

[69] The king-fisher.

OBSERVATIONS ON THE ORIENTAL ECLOGUES AND ODES.

BY DR. LANGHORNE.

OBSERVATIONS ON THE ORIENTAL ECLOGUES.

The genius of the pastoral, as well as of every other respectable
species of poetry, had its origin in the east, and from thence was
transplanted by the muses of Greece; but whether from the continent of
the Lesser Asia, or from Egypt, which, about the era of the Grecian
pastoral, was the hospitable nurse of letters, it is not easy to
determine. From the subjects, and the manner of Theocritus, one would
incline to the latter opinion, while the history of Bion is in favour of
the former.

However, though it should still remain a doubt through what channel the
pastoral traveled westward, there is not the least shadow of uncertainty
concerning its oriental origin.

In those ages which, guided by sacred chronology, from a comparative
view of time, we call the early ages, it appears, from the most
authentic historians, that the chiefs of the people employed themselves
in rural exercises, and that astronomers and legislators were at the
same time shepherds. Thus Strabo informs us, that the history of the
creation was communicated to the Egyptians by a Chaldean shepherd.

From these circumstances it is evident, not only that such shepherds
were capable of all the dignity and elega